Replying to a message of Kurt Weiske to Bob Ackley:

 >> When I visited my sister in CA in 1987 I went browsing through the
 >> newspaper ads looking at house prices.  One could purchase a two
 >> bedroom fixer-upper i Walnut Creek, CA, for a measly $96,000 back then
 >> - 21 years ago...

 KW> My parents bought a 3 BR/2 BA house with a huge front and back yard, 2
 KW> car  garage for $21,000 in Redwood City in 1970. According to Zillow,
 KW> it's now  worth 1.1 million.

Heh.  My grandmother's sister and her husband lived in Redwood City.  When
they bought the farm (it WAS a farm at the time) in the 1930s it was outside of town.
Over the decades they sold off pieces of it (and made a nice amount of
change doing it,
note that the house was about six blocks from El Camino Real).  I last
visited it in 1973
at the family's annual Easter gathering.  After grandma's sister died in
about 1981 the
house (and the acre-plus it was sitting on) were sold to a 'developer' for an obscene
amount of money, the property now has condos on it.

 KW> I've got a house I bought in 1996 for $295K on the market for $750K.
 KW> Let's  see if the market holds a *little* *bit* longer!

My aunt and uncle bought a brand new 3BR place on a corner lot on what then was
the far outskirts of Pinole, CA, in about 1957.  For about $20K.  For many years the
land across the street was pasture, but they started paving and building houses on it
in the late 1970s.  Uncle Bill passed on around 1996 and if memory serves the place
sold for nearly half a million dollars.


--- FleetStreet 1.19+